The goal of Upsum is to answer questions people have about the news as accurately, quickly and simply as possible. Too many articles and videos don't actually answer the questions people want to know. So we created Upsum as a way to address it. You might find us when you ask Google or Alexa questions, or you might sign up for our e-mail newsletter.

Try us. We can't offer a personal service but if it's a genuine question the chances are other people will be asking it too - so give us a go. questions@upsum.news

Upsum has been created by two people: Giles Wilson and Iain Collins. We have a long background in public service journalism and development of tools for newsrooms. You can reach us at info@upsum.news

We have a background in public service journalism in the UK, with many years working at the BBC among other places. We created Upsum because we realised that the existing media services do a pretty poor job of actually answering questions people might have about the news. We want to put that right - our ethos is to make facts about the news part of the fabric of the open web.

We know that trust in the media is a real problem for lots of people. We think the best way to address that is to be honest, understandable and direct in our answers. We aim to be open and transparent about our sources. We have no axes to grind but we also realise that some news organisations are so anxious to appear impartial that it can stop them giving truly open and honest information.

Our commitment is to be open, honest and impartial. We aren't pundits and we're not trying to convince anyone of anything - we just want to give straight, honest answers. Old fashioned, see. (Most of the time it's obvious what "open, honest and impartial" will mean, but in difficult cases we will fall back on the BBC's Editorial Guidelines as our benchmark.)

'Upsum' is a made-up word, used for many years by journalists in the BBC. It is a noun for a report which sums up a situation.

Let us know. E-mail us at feedback@upsum.news.

We put a hyphen in the word because THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN. It's short for electronic mail. Without a hyphen it would be pronounced with the emphasis on the "mail", but that is not how people say it. Call us stubborn if you like.

Upsum uses photographs uploaded to Flickr under a Creative Commons licence which allows re-use with attribution. That's why we have the name of the uploader with a link to their Flickr page. If you see an image that you own that you believe has been used wrongly, please get in touch with us urgently so we can remove it. And thank you to all those open-minded, publicly spirited photographers who are prepared to make their photographs reusable by people like us.